Battery Insiders Reflection - Future of Battery Technology

0:00Transcript

0:00Welcome to Battery Insiders, your podcast providing you insights in the fascinating world of batteries. Hosted by Bhavya Jha and Simon Engelke. Welcome back, everybody. How's it going, Simon? Very well, Bhavya. It's a sunny day in Munich. How about you? It is gloomy, gloomy in Memphis, but we will make do. And as we speak, the sun just popped out, in case anybody was wondering. Here we go. Most important news of the day. Most important news. And so, what did you think about our conversation today? There was lots of chat about battery swapping. There was, yeah. It was, you know, lots of topics, I feel, came up. And then, you know, it was one of our, you know, like more open session, let's say, you know, where we covered quite a bit of ground, you know, like, as you said from, you know, battery swapping, one of our, you know, favorite topics, it seems like, because it always keeps going up. But I guess it's one of these where it's, you know, there's still a lot to be discussed.

1:08But also, of course, the more recent news from the European Union with the FIT455 package. And, you know, from the European Commission, some of the climate package, you know, proposals coming up there. So, yeah. A lot of exciting news on this as well. Yes, absolutely. I love that we have audience members who are just so blunt and blatantly ask and say, I don't know about X thing. Can you tell me about X? Oh, and Y and Z as well. So I'm glad we had some of those moments in our chat today. And yeah, I think the new developments from the EU are really exciting. It looks like they're aiming for 100% by 2035. So fully, so really just no carbon dioxide emissions from cars and vans. I think that's a really ambitious and exciting timeline. I'm curious how this how this will ripple effect around the world, especially here in the US as we do transition. Do you think we're going to hit this target?

2:14I mean, the European Union, I mean, you know, once it is a target, it has to happen, right? I mean, like once it's in law, you know, there's quite a lot of work you have seen. There has been quite some uproar by some certain groups since then, I think since the 14th. But I know, I mean, I'm very optimistic on this one. We can already see, right, from lots of industry as well, you know, pushing the transition, you know, being in favor of it. Like I think with some announcements as well, it's Volkswagen, you know, supportive of it. Of course, it's, you know, just Europe, you know, just EU. It's not global, as you say. So, you know, it will be interesting to see how it's in other places. And of course, you know, there's quite a few companies who say they're going to keep selling ICE cars in other places. So it's kind of, you know, a different issue. But I think it's super exciting.

2:59I mean, you know, as before, there wasn't a date to kind of, you know, 100% reduce emissions from electric vehicles and vans especially as well. And, you know, already just say by 2030, there needs to be a reduction of, you know, 55% or 50% for vans or at least like cars, like vehicles, 55% and 50% for vans. And that's, you know, that's, I think, shows the urgency, right? It's kind of moving. That's half, which means, you know, you need a lot more, you know, either battery powered, like, you know, like emission-free vehicles. You know, I mean, there's, of course, hydrogen as well. But I think it's quite clear at this point, you know, that at least in personal transport, you know, things are going to be battery powered. So it means lots of batteries, so lots of things to do in our space. What do you think? Yeah, I'm just thinking about timeline that puts us, gives us about 14 years. And think about where we were 14 years ago.

3:53So I guess who's to say that it can't happen. And as you said, in the EU, it is law, so it has to happen. I'm hopeful that similar trends catch on here in the US. I know that they've already kind of started. Car companies are really, have, you know, been going public about their intentions to be all electric by X year. And they're pretty aggressive timelines. And I think that their, their commitment to the cause and making these public announcements about going all electric will eventually help transition the US during a pretty critical time, not only for, during this critical time for climate change, but also for our country at large. I'm interested to see what campaigns in the US come out from these efforts. But it will, I think it'll, it'll be an interesting thing to keep an eye on. And then maybe one day we'll be comparing and contrasting how this effort is going, as it is ongoing already. Absolutely. I think another thing also to be aware of, right, as well is that, you know, we're talking about, you know, zero, you know, carbon dioxide, zero emission costs.

5:10And of course, you know, they're not, you know, emission free completely, right? They might be like, you know, in the US and in the city, et cetera. Nothing coming out, which of course is fantastic. But I think it's also quite exciting, you know, that there are also developments to say, you know, battery emissions have to be reduced as well. And that's, you know, things you can see, you know, from developments, you know, I think there's, there's quite some, some exciting movement also, you know, related to batteries from the European Union coming up from one having these standards, you know, reduction emissions in the batteries, but also how to actually track that, right? Like through platforms such as the battery passport and other initiatives. So I think it's, it's also kind of exciting to see what the next step is, right? Because of the overall, the overall mission is to reduce emissions, right? That's, that's the mission. And like, you know, like the vehicle is, is a big step for that because you can, you know, avoid fossil fuels and you can also like, you know, use the circular economy, right?

6:02To reuse your materials. But it's really exciting, I think also to think about how to overall, you know, the emissions step-by-step. So I think the first step is now electrify everything. And then the step is right, how we are like at the same time already, it's going to happen and how we can even reduce the emissions occurring through, you know, creating these alternative solutions now. Now, do you happen to know if this, these goals include just the product itself? So like the car or the van's emissions are like holistically product, like entire life cycle of an electric car. That's a very good question. I think this is really now targeted on, on, you know, on, I think on the vehicle itself, but I think it's not so much about the electricity where this comes from. I'm pretty sure there should also be, that's something I've to admit about, I haven't looked into so much yet. What, if there's any regulation on this one, I feel there should be.

6:57Because, I mean, it's really about, right, how can we, you know, reduce the net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030, right? I mean, that's the, that's the goal of this, you know, of this package of proposals essentially. So that's, that's really what we're talking about, right? It's called Fit for 55. It's not about, you know, up to 55 years, but it's 55% by 2030, right? So compared to 1990 levels. And of course, you know, creating of electricity is a big part of that as well. I'm pretty sure it's, it's about like, you know, you commission trading system, you know, putting a price on carbon, that's a big one, but also this, you know, things coming to Europe, then brought down emissions. So that's already, you know, talks about has successfully brought down emissions from power generation, energy intensive industries by 20, 42.8% in the last past 16 years. So, you know, it's, you know, it's showing some, some things already happened, but of course, you know, it's a big thing to, to reduce your emissions, energy production and use accounts of, so I'm not reading some of these things, but like energy production and use accounts for 75% of EU emissions.

8:09So accelerating transition to a green energy system is crucial. The renewable energy directive will set an increased target to produce 40% of our energy from renewable sources by 2030. So it's in there and it's one of the directors. Another one's also energy efficiency, you know, so there's, there's a bunch of them. It's really like a proper package. And as you say, I really believe it has to, you know, all come together to be, you know, truly effective. Well, I think that the targeting vehicle emissions is definitely a strong first step. And then, you know, we'll see how things progress regarding life cycle management as a whole. And, you know, you touched on things like circular economy. And I think a lot about emissions during manufacturing and end of life management. Those will also become relevant and, you know, come into the spotlight as we are better able to target the emissions from the vehicles in the first place. So I think we have a lot to look out for as things progress.

9:10This has been really exciting. These are some really exciting updates to targets. This makes hopefully us as well as our listeners a bit hopeful about the ongoing conversation actually leading to action, which is ultimately where what's going to get us where we need to be. So I'm really excited about these developments. Absolutely. And I think there's also some, you know, developments also from, you know, aviation and maritime, you know, fields, things like e-fuels, et cetera. That's also interesting what's happening there. Maybe one last thing I'm just reading is now is we also talked about, you know, charging, right? We spoke about charging before on this podcast. You know, like charging capacity has to be in line with zero emission car sales. One thing I can see here is, you know, that kind of what they kind of propose, you know, directive is to install charging and fueling points at regular intervals on major highways. That means every 60 kilometers for electric charging and every 150 kilometers for hydrogen refueling.

10:12And I think especially this hydrogen refueling is going to be interesting, you know, if there's going to be the need for that. At the moment we can see, right, the personal transport is, you know, there's almost no hydrogen, you know, being used in Europe if you look at the car sales. And, you know, we'll see if there's going to be bigger trucks, et cetera, being more reliant on it. But it's also interesting to see how all these things can be implemented, you know, and if the demand is going to be there as well. Absolutely. Wow. Thanks for sharing that wealth of information in addition to everything that we discussed on battery revolution today. Yeah, absolutely. And then we're going to have another session next week, which is going to be fun as well. We're going to talk about like battery basics. So if you ever wondered, like, you know, if everyone was shy of asking, you know, some of these maybe to you, you thought really trivial questions or even just definitions, right?

11:04I mean, there's lots of terms being used in industry, et cetera. So this is going to be a really nice session to, you know, to just come join us for asking any questions or also listen to it and, you know, learn some of the battery basics, like, you know, what are all these terms you might have heard about in the past and always wonder what they actually mean. Great. Looking forward to it. Sounds like a good foundations class. Sounds good. See you then. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.